Questions about reverting to Win 8.1

[BhargavJ]

Hello everyone, I have a few questions. I have a Dell laptop, i5, 4 GB RAM, Win 8.1 Single Language x64. The license is in the BIOS itself. Two days ago, I upgraded to Win 10. I don't find anything special in 10, instead I'm facing problems running some apps that I use regularly; please see the end of the post for the reason I'm going back to Win 8.1.

The questions:

[1] I made a system backup of the C: drive partition containing Win 8.1, using EaseUS Todo Backup. I can boot the computer into EaseUS and revert to the previous backup from there. There is also an option in Win 10 to revert to Win 8.1 (using the windows.old folder). Which is more advisable - using EaseUS or reverting from within Win 10. I am more inclined towards using EaseUS - I've used it earlier for the same task, and I feel that it will be quicker than reverting from within Win 10; I don't know for sure how much time it will take from within Win 10. Also, something might get damaged while reverting from within Win 10. The reason I'm asking is because I don't understand how the licensing thing works: my computer has got registered with Microsoft as Win 10. If I suddenly revert to Win 8.1 using EaseUS and not from within Win 10, MS won't cancel my license, will it? I need to be sure about all this.

If using EaseUS for reverting is okay, I'll delete the windows.old folder, make a system backup of Win 10 with EaseUS, and then revert to Win 8.1. This way I'll have a way to easily switch to Win 10 in the future.

[2] The C: drive containing the Win 8.1 installation had 60 GBs of used space out of 100 GBs. At present, the C: drive containing the Win 10 installation is 49.2 GBs (used space), and this includes the windows.old folder, which is 26.7 GBs. Does this mean Win 10 has a much smaller installation size than Win 8.1? If yes, that's just great!!!

The reason I'm reverting to Win 8.1: I find nothing special about it. I use the computer for web browsing, watching movies, and document work, all of which I can do with Win 8.1. Win 10 downloads updates on its own without asking me, and at times, starts downloading at full speed; I have to wait for the downloads to finish so that I can continue using the net. I should have control over this.

The main reason I'm going back to Win 8.1 is that I have a licensed Kaspersky AntiVirus, and I also use Sandboxie, and in Win 10, Sandboxie has completely stopped working. These two apps have had a problem with each other for quite some time, but I was able to run some apps with Sandboxie in Win 8.1. Firefox and Chrome wouldn't work (with Kaspersky installed), but Opera did work, so I switched to Opera. But in Win 10, even Opera has stopped working. I don't know of any other software similar to Sandboxie; I've found some sandboxing apps on the net, but they seem different, nothing as easy as Sandboxie. So I've decided to go back to Win 8.1. (If people know about a sandboxing software similar to Sandboxie, please do tell. Not the type of software that locks the entire partition and on reboot everything is as it was earlier.)

Thanks.

 

[Colif]

1) your licence only becomes a win 10 licence after 30 days of use, so rolling back before that cancels the conversion, and your licence remains a win 8.1 licence.

I don't think it matters which way you roll back, do which ever you are most comfortable with.

2) My Win 10 folder is 19gb, my total C usage is 50gb but my install is 6 months old and C has more than windows on it... not a lot more though.

I don't have an answer for last part.

 

[BhargavJ]

So after 30 days, the license becomes permanently a Win 10 license, and you can't use Win 8.1 after that by reinstalling a system backup, let's say, 40 days later? I was under the impression that even after 30 days, you could go back to Win 8.1 any time and it would run activated. I thought it's Win 8.1 AND Win 10 - one license for both versions, but only one can be used at any one point in time, with the user having a choice of switching between the two any time he or she wanted, but it turns out to be Win 8.1 OR Win 10, and 30 days after the first Win 10 install, whichever version is running gets locked permanently. Too bad...

I'll tinker with Win 10 for a while more. I have Comodo Firewall installed, and it has its own sandbox, but haven't used it yet.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[Colif]

You understand now but the win 10 upgrade is a conversion process. You don't keep your old licence, it becomes a win 10 licence. People have misunderstood that part before, they made mistake of thinking win 10 is free, whereas in reality the cost is your previous licence. It isn't free if you didn't own Win 7 or 8 already. People have thought they could upgrade and then reinstall the old windows as dual boot... it doesn't work like that.